Enlightenment and Empire
Enlightenment France sought a pure, rational architecture. The Revolution and Napoleon made it a language for republic and empire.
Soufflot’s church of Sainte-Geneviève, today the Panthéon, is carried by free-standing columns as in a Greek temple. Boullée and Ledoux designed ideal buildings of spheres, cubes and pyramids, and Ledoux’s saltworks at Arc-et-Senans was actually built.
Napoleon gave Paris triumphal arches and the temple-shaped Madeleine. The Arc de Triomphe at the Étoile, begun in 1806, was completed in 1836.